(The Continuing Testing of Sonship and the Communion Available in Every Need)

September 19th continues the theme of temptation, but Chambers now places that testing within the earthly life of Jesus and the life of sonship expressed through the believer. Spurgeon turns toward the believer’s continual access to the Father. Together they reveal that temptation does not end the relationship of sonship; it becomes one of the places where dependence is lived. Whatever confronts the believer may be brought openly before the Father rather than becoming an occasion for self-direction.

Temptation Continued Throughout the Life of Jesus

Chambers writes:

“The temptation of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us.” (My Utmost for His Highest)

Chambers removes the expectation that spiritual maturity should eventually place a person beyond temptation.

Jesus himself was tempted throughout his earthly life.

Yet temptation did not mean that something was deficient in his relationship with the Father. It tested the filial life he was already living.

This is important after yesterday’s description of temptation as an outside power testing what is within. Jesus encountered real pressures that offered another way—a way of self-preservation, self-direction, or action apart from dependence upon the Father.

But the Son continued to live from the Father.

When Chambers speaks of “the life of the Son of God in us,” we need not understand this as Jesus personally residing within the believer. It is the filial life revealed in Jesus becoming expression through the new nature.

That life remains subject to testing because the believer continues to live amid pressures that invite a return to independence.

Temptation therefore does not prove that the life of sonship is absent.

It reveals where the life will turn.

Access to the Father in Every Circumstance

Spurgeon writes:

“It is the believer’s privilege to have access at all times to His heavenly Father. Whatever our desires, our difficulties, our wants, we are at liberty to spread all before Him.” (Morning and Evening)

Spurgeon gives us the relational answer to Chambers’s continuing temptation.

Access to the Father is not limited to moments when the believer feels spiritually settled.

Desires may be brought before him.

Difficulties may be brought before him.

Needs may be brought before him.

Nothing requires the believer first to resolve the struggle independently.

This is the freedom of sonship.

Self-direction tends to turn temptation inward. It analyzes, struggles, attempts to control desire, or tries to manufacture sufficient strength to resist.

But the child has access to the Father.

Prayer therefore becomes more than asking God to remove temptation. It is the expression of dependence within it.

We bring the whole circumstance before God because the life was never meant to be carried independently.

Where the Two Meet: Testing Turns the Life Toward Its Source

Chambers tells us that temptation continues.

Spurgeon tells us that access continues as well.

That connection is significant.

The persistence of temptation does not mean the believer must develop an increasingly independent ability to overcome it. The continuing test is met by continuing communion.

Jesus revealed this throughout his earthly life. Pressure did not turn him inward toward self-sufficiency. His dependence upon the Father remained the defining character of his sonship.

The same orientation belongs to the spirit of sonship.

Temptation says, in one form or another:

“Take the direction of your life into your own hands.”

Sonship remains open to God.

The victory is therefore deeper than resisting an isolated act. It is the refusal to exchange dependence for independence.

Pastoral Orientation

September 19th offers freedom from two mistaken expectations: that temptation should eventually disappear, and that overcoming it depends upon becoming strong enough within ourselves.

Neither Chambers nor Spurgeon leaves us there.

Temptation may continue.

Access to the Father continues too.

Bring the desire.

Bring the difficulty.

Bring the need.

Even bring the confusion created by the temptation itself.

The Holy Spirit operates upon the human spirit, keeping before us the filial life revealed in Jesus and forming responsiveness rather than self-reliance.

The question is not whether pressure will come.

It will.

The deeper question is where the life turns when it does.

Self-direction turns inward.

Sonship turns toward the Father.

And there, in the very place where another source of life is being offered, temptation becomes an occasion for something else to be revealed: the life of the Son continuing in dependence upon the Father.